Dear Rare, honestly. This has gone for a long time now.
Sword combat used to be pretty solid. It had something a lot of casual players hated which was "Slowed down on attacking". This mechanic had lots of purpose with the others such as sword hopping, blocking and just escaping swords. But, Bunny-hopping pirates could always escape it because Rare never implemented stunlocking Mid-Air Pirates.
Slowness had a place in the sword combat, but that got removed, and now has completely changed the other aspects and interactions of the sword with each other. Ever since then, sword combat has become pretty mindless, flimsy. And just... lazy.
This new update (As amazing as it is) introduced a new aspect to sword. "No longer comboing through environment". This is, Okay in a way. But, it did not do anything. Or at least, it did very little and made sword combat feel bit more flimsy. But there is potential for it, so I am not ruling it out. I just dont think this small change is what is needed.
However, despite this change,
The glitch to make it redundant is still out there.
Now, I dont want to talk about the glitch/exploit and how this single strike when not hitting anyone is not changing anything. Instead, im going to now point at the more glaring aspect which is:
Blocking
Any defencive options with a sword against a sword is now really bad.
First off, Swinging a sword lets you move at a normal pace. Blocking attacks has you stand COMPLETELY STILL. This completely deflates the method of blocking attacks and lets the attacker jump and swing at a normal pace, making the ability to block that much more difficult to do, And impersonal as you cant clearly see your opponent for most encounters.
Second, Someone who succesfully blocked 3 strikes and wants to retaliate is still inconcistently being hit before he makes his own attack. Resulting in a Trade or a loss for the defender. Which means, someone inside a cramped space like the inside of a ship cannot retaliate when the attacker keeps attacking and isnt being knocked back enough. This rewards swinging the sword mindlessly. (This happened to me too many times).
Thirdly, The ability to sword hop is activated even when they cant sword hop, which means; after blocking 3 attacks, you cannot sword hop until you are allowed. If you do sword hop when you are not allowed, an invisible cooldown will stop you from sword hopping when you actually can. Basically making the act of panic sword-hopping out of blocking by pressing the jump button PUNISHING.
Here is how you can change sword while retaining a lot of the good qualities from the changes you guys made
- Fix the Glitch
Ive reported this glitch a while back and dont want to go into detail about it here.
- Have MID-AIR pirates get stunlocked when hit (Stop their horisontal movement).
Those pirates that jump around your ship cannot be cought and was harder to catch with previous sword combat. This addition/fix would have made things feel like you actually cought someone, instead of landing a hit and still see him running away. This addition makes the sword consistent.
- Only 2nd and 3rd strikes slow the attacker down
Slowness made blocking easier, and had you face to face with your opposing pirate. Making blocking easier and rewarded patience, and it didn't devolve fights into running and slicing around like chickens. If we simply let the first attack let you keep normal running pace, then the "No enviornment comboing" will work in tandemn with this new change because you wont accidentally make yourself "Slowed down".
- When you did your last strike, you cannot make another attack for 0.25 sec (or 0.50 sec) longer.
This is simply to make blocking more rewarding and escaping after being hit 3 times, and trading less prevalent. When a good fight happens, 2 pirates will block and attack each other going back and forth until they make a change in their strategy. This is how it was previously.
- Sword-Hop cooldown now only triggers when you have actually sword-hopped.
Its just a fix.
That is it. With the arena update, I have had more chances to better understand combat. I have become a better pistol wielder in just these 2 days. But sword combat is still the same as it is just flimsy and unpredictable as to when I will get hit or not, or if I even have a chance to do anything after blocking attacks.
